..one girl's endeavors into the world of organic food, one penny at a time

Category Archives: garlic

I’m still alive! (sort of). I’m actually home sick today so I figured I could FINALLY update my blog. Since the semester has started back up I have been busy teaching, taking a class, and doing research. This usually accounts for 10-16 hour workdays. By the time I get home I make something quick and easy (omelette, 10 bowls of cereal, oatmeal…) but occasionally I have a particularly bad day and need to cook. I think I have 4 or 5 recipes that I will be posting today, so stay tuned!

When my CSA decided to call it quits, they cleared out their farm and gave each of us 2 boxes – about 40 pounds – of produce. In the end, I probably received as much as I would have over the following weeks. Among my bounty was 17 squash, an enormous bag filled with garlic (I would estimate 30-40 bulbs), bags of potatoes, and lots and lots of greens. Also, my CSA gave us this link http://www.localgrowers.org/csa-programs/ to help us find a new farm to support. I joined a winter CSA and am very excited about it.

So, I have a lot of squash. Becca and I took a cute date to Nashville, Indiana, and I bought a down home, kitschy squash cookbook. I’ve been getting ideas from it, but mostly for breads. When I have a lot of squash, I typically roast 2 or 3 at a time and just keep the roasted sqash in the fridge to put on oatmeal, bake into a casserole, or make breads. I wanted pasta the other day so I had the idea to adapt my gnocchi recipe for squash. I got lazy so instead of making “pillows” I just rolled the dough into balls.

My biggest issue with chicken is that my mom (as amazing of a cook as she is) has always overcooked chicken to the point of it being as crumbly as the fantastic baking powder biscuits she usually made to go with them. I never really realized chicken was supposed to be…juicy.

As a result, my diet had largely consisted of red meat throughout my cooking-on-my-own years.

Fast forward to now and me not really eating red meat anymore, and I’m finding more and more chicken in my diet (when it’s on sale, of course).

I’ve been making this meal lately, partly because picky-boyfriend-Dave likes it a lot and partly because it’s really freaking easy.

Picky-boyfriend-Dave also lives in Indy now, so we’ve been making it out to Trader Joes every week or two. This past time I went I picked up a bag of all natural chicken breasts for $7.00.

I don’t know about everyone else in the CSA world, but I am completley overrun with potatoes and garlic. Especially garlic. I literally have 15 bulbs sitting in my pie cabinet right now. Fortunately, potatoes and garlic go perfectly with roasted chicken. 🙂

One thing I have been doing with my roasted chicken is seasoning it to the point I feel as though I may be over seasoning it I have determined, however, that this is not possible, and the more seasoning the better (especially if you have chicken from a butcher that has good skin on it).

Something I did at the end was put parmesan on top. I totally don’t recommend this. I don’t know..I just don’t think it goes well with roasted potatoes (but tastes good with the chicken). I also don’t think I like parmesan cheese that much, so maybe my opinion on this isn’t the best.

Roasted Tandoor-Chipotle Chili Powder Chicken with CSA Veggies

-chop potatoes, greens, garlic, and cucumber and toss them in olive oil in a roasting pan

-liberally rub two chicken breasts with tandoori, chipotle chili powder, cumin, and salt; place on top of veggies

-chop quarter tomatoes and place on top of chicken

-roast at 400 degrees for ~30 minutes; cut the thickest part of the chicken to make sure it is completley done